Is a pacemaker appropriate?

My wife had a mitral vakve repair 3 years ago as well as a maze to correct AF; heartbeat was in teh upper 90's so she then had a cardioversion to regularise heartbeat and this worked fine, bringing it down to the mid-60's. Earlier this year her specialist replaced her calcium channel blocker with an ARB. Shortly afterwards she experienced a heart attack; a subsequent ECG indicated a Taku-tsubo syndrome as well as Troponin positivity. She then had a Cardiac MRI scan which apparently revealed little, same for a 24 hour ECG despite her heartbeat going up to 140-160 on a  number of days. It has been brought down with a Betablocker after two hospital admissions through A & E.
Her heartbeat is currently in the higher 50's and lower 60's and a pacemaker is suggested to regularise the intermittent bradycardia and occasional tachycardia. Is this the appropriate treatment as there appears to be a lot of uncertainty regarding clinical decision-making?  

[Jerry_NJ]

Sorry to read about the bad turn of events.  I too have had a mitral valve repair and a maze.  The maze and heart surgery put me in NSR for about a month, but it has been AFib ever since.  That's about 4 years now.  I have had one electrocardioversion, the NSR lasted about 5 days.

I have never checked out with braydcardia, just need BB and CCB to keep the HR below 100 at rest.  

I hope you get some input on the pacemaker from people with experience.  I believe it is an extreme measure but know two people who have them and seem to be doing fine.  Both of the people are in their senior years so they are not in the high activity group regardless.

Perhaps you need to seek another opinion from a medical expert, but I think it highly likely that your doctors are making recommendations from a vast clinical knowledge...far great than anyone who migh respond on this forum.

Good luck to both of you,

[joeyboy42]

Thanks for the supportive comments; have placed the question also on the doctors forum to get medical advice. What is really frustrating is that there is a lack of institutional memory and each consultation starts at step 1...as if tests and treatments had not taken place previously and medicatuion can be changed or added to without sufficient evidence that change is needed.
however must soldier on and hope that the pacemaker pathway brings improvements.
best wishes to all group members